Friday, October 9, 2009

This week's public service from your Unhumble Car Czar: A list of the most dangerous cars on the road. Please find this list not a mere variation on all those "what your car says about you" lists, but an officially-pretend-government-sanctioned one – meaning actual self-appointed experts have gathered and parsed the data ... not some guy sitting around posing in an internet cafe just making stuff up.

Without further adieu (come to think of it, there hasn't been any adieu so far, so never mind):

The Five Most Dangerous Cars on U.S. Roads

Five: Ford Escort Wagons. Last made decades ago, but time and awareness has slipped away from the drivers of these cars. Most likely to be seen plugging up any lane of the freeway trundling along "safely" at 45, sagging in the back under the weight of never-removed piles of old clothing that were supposed to go to Good Will and/or a load of those weekly junk ads that get thrown in your driveway in the dark of night.

Four: Smart Cars. Drivers thereof are so used to revving these golf carts to Kingdom Come to join the conga line to Starbucks that the habit remains in residential neighborhoods. Not unusual to see a SmartCart hauling 45 in a 25 on any residential road with a mile of roll-out strip.

Three: Full-size Pickup Trucks and SUVs. It's the whole tailgating-lemme-through-I'm-bigger-than-you thing. Shame on you five-foot-six men and five-foot-two women, and all of you bigger people with little brains, little doinks, or both. Society would like a word with you once you've removed your Kenworth-sized frontispieces.

Two: Entry-level Buzz-bombs with Stuff Hanging from the Rearview Mirror. Don't know why. There's always a tiny head poking forward just above the steering wheel as these things bomb down the left lane at 90 without any apparent game plan for not running into other traffic.

One: Tie: BMW 3-series and Minivans. Because BMW 3-series owners think they own the road, and because Minivan drivers don't know they're on the road. Woe unto the junior executive who aspires to the second-to-littlest BMW. Said exec rarely figures out that there's just no advantage to an expensive Bavarian mountain screamer in rush-hour freeway traffic, so takes to fits of motoring delusion, flooring it and zigging and zagging through The Great No Place to Go of crowded U.S. freeways making an ass out of him or her self. As to Minivan drivers: often found slowing down mid-block near The Great No Place to Turn and Nothing in the Way and Why the Heck are You Slowing Down, Anyway of crowded U.S. surface streets, perhaps looking for a missing sock in the laundry basket at home (this last behavior is due to a Roadgoing/Nesting Duality Thing -- saw it on the internet somewhere).

Please consider yourself warned, and let's be careful out there.

***

P.S. Congrats to the boss for winning the Nobel Peace Prize today. I know -- some people will be mad. But those people were already mad.